Mitigating accidents

[modi13]

After reviewing most of the TSB's commercial fixed-wing accident reports from the last four years, I've noticed a rather unnerving trend: both of the pilots in almost all of the incidents involving multi-crew aircraft, especially those resulting from pilot error, were new to the airplanes and the companies. While they sometimes had thousands of hours in comparable operations, they had less than 500 hours on type, quite often with the captain and FO hired at the same time. Based on this trend it seems the best way to mitigate accidents in multi-crew aircraft is simply to never pair inexperienced pilots together. As basic as this may seem, putting a new hire with another pilot who has at least 1000 hours on type, regardless of whether it's the captain or FO, would go a long way to preventing accidents resulting from pilot error.

[square]

I'm current on 4 types and don't have 1000 hours on any one of them. Like most pilots. And if most pilots have less than 1000 hours on type... most accidents will have pilots with less than 1000 hours on type.

Statistics!

[modi13]

A few examples: http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 5a0059.asp Captain - 131 hours on type; FO - 112 hours on type.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 7c0001.asp Captain - 449 hours on type; FO - 439 hours on type.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 7w0005.asp Captain - 300 hours on type; FO - 20 hours on type.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 7q0213.asp Captain - 122.9 hours on type; FO - 71.9 hours on type.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 5q0024.asp Captain - 700 hours on type; FO - 200 hours on type.
The issue isn't an absolute amount of experience, it's the fact that the least experienced captains and FOs are paired together, which directly leads to their being overwhelmed by the workload or confused by the aircraft's systems. It really shouldn't be that difficult to pair the most experienced captain with the least experienced FO in the company, and vice versa, until sufficient experience is acquired.

[square]

What % of accidents have both crew with over 1000 hours on type?

[goldeneagle]

Casual 'statistics' are a dangerous thing, when applied by folks that dont really understand them.

My first question would be, if 75% of accidents are with crews under 1000 on type, what percentage of flying is done by crews with under 1000 on type. If the answer to that is 75% as well, then, there is no correlation between experience on type and accident rate. It's just a simple correlation of 'this group does 75% of the flying, and has 75% of the accidents'. The accident rate then correlates with how much flying is being done, and not the experience level of the crew.

With over 6000 in the book, I've only got one type on which there is over 1000 on type. It's a simple bit of math then to say, if I had an accident during that time, which I didn't, the probability of it being on a machine where I had less than 1000 on type is on the order of 80%, because I've spent 80% of my total time, flying in airplanes where I didn't have 1000 on type.

Especially in the smaller aircraft segment of the industry, most folks are looking to 'step up' by the time they reach 1000 on type, so, I'd be very surprised if the statistics showed that more than 20 or 25% of the flying was being done by folks with more than 1000 on type, simply because by the time a person has that, they are madly applying all over the place to 'step up'. If 75%+ of the flying is being done by folks with less than that, then it stands to reason, I'd expect 75% of the accidents to fall into that category too. It's not because they are any better/worse than those with the higher numbers, its simply a larger population to begin with, so, stands to reason that the larger segment of the statistical population, will indeed have the larger number of accidents.

[modi13]

How could I have been so foolish as to think we could actually discuss the topic and not just nitpick the original post? I don't care about the actual amount of time on type; I threw out 1000 hours as an example off the top of my head, not a change that should immediately be made to the CARs. The much more important issue - the one I actually wanted to address - is that of inexperienced pilots being paired together and the direct correlation that has with accidents caused by pilot error.

[KK7]

I did a quick search and found that most accidents over the last 10 years involved pilots with less than 20 000 hours total time.

[Cat Driver]

It would be interesting to know how many pilots we have on this forum with 20,000 + hours and zero accidents.

[aviator2010]

personal attack removed by Sulako. Steerike!

[Cat Driver]

and how many of those whine about suing the goverment for some time off

Better still aviator 2010, how many have sued the government and won?

I did.

Far from whining I was happy beyond belief to have won my case against them.

If you are going to make demeaning comments about me here I would suggest you get your facts straight or you will be history on this forum.

Time you check the rules to post here.